


i'm just curious (is it serious?)

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/F, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 05:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16382270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Melinda goes on a date with Andrew. Bobbi wants to know if it's serious.





	i'm just curious (is it serious?)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agentmmayy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmmayy/gifts).



It’s five days after Melinda’s first date with Andrew that Bobbi finally catches up with her. It’s an honest-to-God miracle that it hasn’t happened sooner, and Mel considers it likely that Bobbi spent at least a part of the time avoiding her, too. 

The blonde steps in front of her in the hallway, cocking her hip to the side and crossing her arms across her chest. She doesn’t have to say anything for Mel to feel chastised, but the specialist keeps her face schooled in a neutral expression. 

“Yes, Agent Morse?” Melinda asks patiently. It’s as subtle of a reminder as she can manage that right now they’re both working, and any discussion of personal relationships is better done at a later time. It’s not because she wants to avoid the conversation, Mel tells herself. She’s perfectly fine with discussing her date with her… whatever. 

“Nothing,” Bobbi says, her own face mirroring Mel’s careful mask. “I just thought you sometimes talked to your friends after something important happened in your life.” Her voice is chilly despite how carefully she tried to hide any expression, and that’s when Mel knows she’s made a serious error in calculation. She’s searching for the best retort when she realizes that Bobbi’s already gone, disappeared into the labyrinth of the base. 

Mel shakes her head, resigned, and returns back to her work. She’ll deal with Bobbi later.

\---

Later comes much later than Mel expects. Bobbi’s assigned to a mission that takes her to the Saudi desert for two weeks. In that time, Mel has another date with Andrew, and tries not to think of perilously blue eyes when looking into his deep brown ones.

The next time Melinda sees Bobbi, she’s significantly tanner and sunburn stains her cheeks faint pink. Bobbi walks with a slight limp down the corridor, and it’s not difficult for Mel to catch up to her. She traces a soft finger on Bobbi’s elbow to let the younger woman know that she’s there - not that she doubts that Bobbi already knows. The blonde seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to people, one not even Melinda understands even though she’s often been told she has the same talent.

“Hey,” Bobbi greets. She doesn’t look down at Mel, and doesn’t seem that content to be speaking to her in the first place. 

“You have time to talk?” Mel asks, trying to keep her voice gentle. 

“Not really,” Bobbi deflects. “I’ve got a mound of paperwork to get through today.”

Mel wets her lips. She hadn’t been expecting Bobbi to be so evasive, not when she had gone out of her way to seek Mel out in the first place. “I can help?” Melinda suggests.

“Fine.” Bobbi doesn’t say anything more for the rest of the walk to her small office, and Mel doesn’t try to start a conversation. They duck into the office together, and Mel lets out a low whistle at the pile of papers of Bobbi’s desk. She hadn’t been exaggerating the amount of work she had to do.

Bobbi plops into the chair behind the desk, lacking all her usual grace and poise. She grabs a pen and the top sheet of paper, resolutely ignoring Melinda.

Mel sits in the only other chair in the room, grabbing the next folder of papers off the top of Bobbi’s stack. Her eyes flick over it, identifying the information that she can fill in for Bobbi, before she begins the work.

The silence seems to stretch forever, and it’s not the comfortable sort of silence Mel’s accustomed to sharing with Bobbi. It’s not even awkward, just unbelievably tense. She’s waiting for Bobbi to snap.

“You two hung out at the beach, huh?” The question, serene in its delivery, is not the snap that Mel expected out of Bobbi. For all her pretending at being infinitely level-headed, Bobbi can let her emotions get the better of her at the worst of times - especially when it comes to affairs of the heart.

“Yeah,” Mel says. “We went to the Santa Monica pier.” She expects Bobbi already knows this.

“So you take your fuck buddies to the bar and your romances to the beach and a nice steakhouse. Good to know.” Bobbi clicks her pen at the end of her sentence before laying it on her desk. 

Mel once again finds herself out at a loss for words. She doesn’t know how Bobbi had heard about the second date with Andrew, and she doesn’t know how to respond to Bobbi’s accusation that Mel’s been treating her two lovers differently. The latter, especially, is tying her up, because it’s true. There’s no way to dispute the truth.

“I really don’t give a fuck what you do with Andrew,” Bobbi says, picking up the pen again to twirl it between her fingers. “But if you’re going to do whatever with him, and we’re going to stop our thing, I’d like to actually be told instead of having to hear it at the water cooler.”

It’s a fair ask. Except Mel doesn’t want her dating Andrew to change what she has with Bobbi. Andrew is calm and collected and infinitely sweet, but Bobbi makes her feel… different. A good kind of different, one she doesn’t have the vocabulary for. 

“I don’t want to stop our thing,” Mel says firmly. “I just need some time, okay?”

“So it’s serious?” Bobbi asks, quirking an eyebrow. “You and Andrew?”

“We’ve had two dates, Bobbi, it’s not like I’m going to marry him!” Mel responds indignantly.

“But if it wasn’t serious, you wouldn’t need to put us on pause for him,” Bobbi pushes. “I’m just curious, okay? What happens with you and him affects me.”

“I’ll tell you what I think you need to know,” Mel says, bristling. “Just because we fuck sometimes doesn’t mean you have the right to know everything.”

“I’d agree if it was just fucking, Mel, but I’ve thought lately that it’s not just that!” Bobbi’s nostrils flare. “I mean, you said -” Bobbi slams her jaw shut. “You know what, forget it.” She makes a shooing motion with her hand. “Go, Mel.”

Melinda doesn’t have much of a choice but to obey.

\---

She goes on another date with Andrew - the almighty third date. Nothing happens, because he’s too much of a gentleman to push, but Mel doesn’t know why she’s holding back. She’s not entirely sure that what happened in Bobbi’s office wasn’t a breakup, if they even have something to break up in the first place.

After the date, she goes to the bar, because nothing but good things happen at bars. What happens next is a blur of alcohol (mostly cheap beer), but it ends with her standing outside the bar next to a group of men smoking joints. They’re too high to leer at her, which Mel is thankful for. She’s worried she might be a bit too inebriated to fight. 

Mel’s hands are steady as she dials the familiar numbers on her cell. She tries not to be too relieved when Bobbi answers.

“I didn’t have sex with Andrew,” Melinda slurs out before Bobbi can get a word in. “I want you. I love you.”

Bobbi’s sigh crackles across the line. “Can you limit yourself to one drunken confession of love per calendar year, please?”

Mel gapes. “Wha?” She doesn’t recall any other love confessions being made.

“Call me when you’re sober, Mel.” Bobbi hangs up immediately. Mel calls a cab and tries to figure out if she managed to get second-hand stoned in her short wait. She manages to get back into her apartment without puking in the cab, and collapses into bed. She’s asleep in ten seconds flat.

\--- 

Morning comes with a hangover for the record books. Mel’s not sure how it got this bad, considering most of the night after leaving Andrew is murky, but she hates her past self a little. 

She groans when the doorbell rings, but drags herself to answer it. On the other side is Bobbi, holding a bag of takeout from their favorite diner, just a couple blocks away. 

Melinda has no choice but to believe that she contacted Bobbi the night previous, because while she’s good, there’s no way the blonde knew she was hungover just from a disturbance in the cosmos (or something equally hokey).

She takes the food out of the plastic bag, flipping open the lid of one of the containers to reveal a stack of pancakes and a small cup of syrup on the side. There’s plastic utensils, too, and even though she feels bad for ruining the environment, Mel isn’t sure she can make it to the kitchen and back to the living room again.

There’s only so long she can avoid the question of why Bobbi’s here, even though Mel’s a little afraid that it’s going to be an official breakup - even though, again, she’s not sure there’s anything to break up.

“Should I be scared of what drunk me did?” Mel asks, trying to lighten the mood as she stuffs the first bite of pancakes into her mouth.

“You should be concerned that drunk you has a habit of confessing her love to me.” Bobbi’s voice is clipped, and her words make Mel’s stomach roil in a way that has nothing to do with the hangover. For a terrifying moment she thinks she’s actually going to puke, which won’t help her current standing with Bobbi whatsoever.

“Really?” Mel chokes out. Bobbi slides her cup full of orange juice. Mel sips gratefully, trying to ease the grating in her throat.

“You did it before in March, before Andrew,” Bobbi says, voice level. “I thought when you met him that maybe you’d made a fluke with me, but last night…” She doesn’t need to finish the sentence.

“Oh.” Mel tries to read Bobbi, but it’s fruitless, as per usual.

“I don’t want to say you need to make a choice, Mel.” Bobbi runs her hand through her hair. “But I need something.”

Melinda May has never been an impulsive person. She likes to think things through; she needs either a plan or muscle memory on her side to feel comfortable in any situation, and now she has neither. 

She leans across the coffee table they’re eating at, and she kisses Bobbi.

She also knocks over the orange juice, which kind of ruins the moment. Bobbi’s laugh is startled, and for just a moment Bobbi’s walls have dropped enough that Mel can read her. The easiest thing to see in Bobbi’s blue eyes is shock, but it’s accompanied by a healthy dose of fear, and… hope?

“They say drunk words are sober thoughts, right?” Melinda laughs nervously as she begins sopping up the orange juice with a pile of napkins Bobbi hands her.

“I really hope that’s not your only reason.” Bobbi pauses, looking at Mel. “It’s not, right?”

“Definitely not,” Mel agrees. “I just... “ She shrugs her shoulders, not used to indecision. “I think I convinced myself Andrew was good for me because he was  _ nice _ , but you know… a lot of people are nice, right?”

“Not sure I’m following,” Bobbi says slowly. “Are you trying to call me mean?”

“No!” Mel yelps in response. “I just mean… I didn’t realize how much I thought about you until I was supposed to be thinking about someone else.” Which, of course, has nothing to do with Andrew’s niceness, but… she’s hungover and in love and neither of those things are particularly good for a coherent train of thought.

They finish cleaning up the orange juice, and Mel sits back down, focused on Bobbi. “What I mean is… Let me take you on a date.”

“Okay.” Bobbi meets her eyes. “You’d better not disappoint me, May.”

“I’m really hoping I won’t, Morse.”

\---

Mel sits at the end of the pier, and resists the urge to check the time for the third time in the last minute. She really hopes Bobbi’s not standing her up. That would suck.

“You know, most people don’t approve of recycling first date locations.” Bobbi saunters down the pier, all long legs and blonde curls and tan skin, and for a moment Mel can’t breathe. 

“I was hoping you’d make an exception,” Mel manages after a pause. “I’ve heard the pier is the place you’re supposed to take your romances.”

“God, I can’t believe I said  _ romances _ ,” Bobbi snorts.

“To be fair, ‘lover’ wouldn’t have been much of a distinction,” Mel says, cocking her head to the side. “You gonna sit?” 

Bobbi does, sliding her flip flops off so she can dangle her feet over the pier’s edge. Mel still can’t quite catch her breath when she sees Bobbi silhouetted in the orange light of the setting sun, but she hopes the younger woman can’t hear it. That would be embarrassing.

“Would it be jumping the gun if I asked if we could skip romances and go straight to girlfriends?” Bobbi asks, voice barely audible over the crashing of the water against the posts of the pier. 

“I don’t think so,” Mel answers. Hesitantly, she wraps her arm around Bobbi’s waist. “I’m really sorry that you had to hear that I loved you for the first time when I was drunk.” Mel hangs her head. “And the second time.”

“Third time’s the charm?” Bobbi asks.

“Yeah.” Mel takes a deep breath. “I love you, you know that?”

Bobbi smiles. “Sounds pretty serious.”

“I’m hoping so,” Mel grins back at Bobbi. 

The blonde slings an arm around Mel’s shoulders, and in short order they’re wrapped up in each other. The sun sinks lower, adding just the slightest edge of chill to the October air, but Bobbi’s arms are more than enough to keep her warm. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my latest attempt in rarepair dabbling, so feel free to let me know what you think! :) As always, I'm on [tumblr](https://huntxngbxrd.tumblr.com).


End file.
